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Vietnam’s all-women teams working to remove mines left over from war
- More than 6.1 million hectares of land in Vietnam remain blanketed by unexploded munitions, which have killed 40,000 people, many of them farmers
- A group of female deminers have been working to clear such bombs, after which the land can be used for agriculture
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Inching across a field littered with Vietnam war-era bombs, Le Thi Bich Ngoc leads an all-women demining team clearing unexploded ordnance that has killed tens of thousands of people – including her uncle.
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“He died in an explosion. I was haunted by memories of him,” says Ngoc, as she oversees the controlled detonation of a cluster bomb found in a sealed-off site in central Quang Tri province.
More than 6.1 million hectares (15 million acres) of land in Vietnam remain blanketed by unexploded munitions – mainly dropped by US bombers – decades after the war ended in 1975.
At least 40,000 Vietnamese have since died in related accidents. Victims are often farmers who accidentally trigger explosions, people salvaging scrap metal, or children who mistake bomblets for toys.
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Part of the demilitarised zone that once divided the North and South, Quang Tri is among the worst-affected provinces.
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